In a 2005 profile in the Christian Science Monitor, Republican uber-consultant Grover Norquist said this about his party’s goals in state legislatures:

“We are trying to change the tones in the state capitals — and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship.”

In that regard, Mr. Norquist just won an “enormous victory” in Missouri.

We put those two words in the preceding sentence in quotation marks because they are the identical words Missouri Speaker of the House Tim Jones used on Wednesday to describe what was actually a failed vote to get his veto-proof Republican majority to pass one of his stated priorities: right-to-work legislation intended to weaken unions in the state.

Why would the speaker of the House, who knows a bill or resolution needs a constitutional majority — at least 82 out of 163 — votes to pass, celebrate getting only 78 of them as not only a victory, but an enormous victory? Particularly when he couldn’t even control his own caucus; 19 Republicans voted against the anti-union measure, two voted present and nine others took the proverbial walk out of the chamber to avoid voting.

Reason: Because Grover Norquist will consider it a victory.

Bringing a right-to-work measure to the floor for a vote that couldn’t pass had nothing to do with Missouri workers. It had nothing to do with jobs. It had nothing to do with making Missouri a better state.

It was about fulfilling the goal of Mr. Norquist and other Republican kingmakers to turn the Missouri Capitol “toward bitter nastiness and partisanship.”

They direct big donors in the age of dark money. They are nothing but vultures, and they are winning.

Mr. Norquist is known as the man behind Americans for Tax Reform, the GOP-advocacy group that successfully got a majority of Republicans in Congress to sign a pledge that said they will pretty much never raise taxes.

But it’s not the tax pledge that Mr. Norquist uses to control Republican votes. It’s his access to big money donors like the Koch brothers, and his ability — honed during his alliance with ex-lobbyist-turned-felon Jack Abramoff — to obscure the source of that money by running it through various shell organizations.

A speaker of the House who is looking out for his caucus doesn’t schedule a vote that is destined to fail and put a target on the back of many of his members. That’s really bad politics. But that’s what Mr. Jones did, because for all practical purposes, he’s no longer really the speaker of the House. He’s term-limited. As a putative candidate for some future office, he’ll need Mr. Norquist’s help.

If the price of future fundraising is creating a little “bitter nastiness” in his own party, so be it.

We’ve outlined our opposition to the right-to-work legislation on these pages many times. In short, like local religious leaders, we believe the effort is merely an attempt to hurt Missouri’s workers by reducing their power to bargain collectively.

What all Missourians should care about is the damage Mr. Jones and his ilk are doing to the legislative process for no other motive than lining their own pockets.

Mr. Norquist and his friends now have the names of 30 Republicans who refused to do their bidding. They can ask their donors for money to target those Republicans with advertisements, to recruit future candidates for nasty primaries, to make Missouri even more divided than it already is. Eventually they hope to find 82 stooges who will pass legislation turning the state into their vision of an oligarchical utopia, a reverse Robin Hood society in which the rich take from the poor.

There will now be Missouri political consultants — oxpeckers, we like to call them — lining up to take on those 30 members of the GOP. Many are from the St. Louis region, where they represent businesses and workers who care about middle-class jobs and wages. They will be under pressure to throw their constituents under the bus.

Or perhaps they have other legislation pending, to fix Missouri’s criminal code, or expand Medicaid, or fund schools, or aid the transfer of students from failing schools.

They will be told by the dark money vultures that if they don’t switch their votes on right-to-work, important legislation that serves the state will be held hostage.

This is the Missouri Legislature that Grover Norquist, Washington insider, wants. It has nothing to do with Missouri and it has less than nothing to do with improving the state’s economy.

It is about a hungry vulture looking for a carcass to feed his insatiable hunger.

Say no to the vultures, Missouri lawmakers. You have to be better than that.

Instead of writing all that and wasting valuable ink, the SPD should've just said: "We, who are liberal, are upset we reside in a state where the vast majority are not. We are angry. The end."

perfect interpretation........

__________________Ephesians 2:8-10

English Standard Version (ESV)

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

the Grover Norquist, Karl Rove, Koch Brothers, etc., use of the boogeyman propaganda by the mullahs of the left cracks me up. You could hardly find a better real life parallel for Emmanuel Goldstein if you tried.